Acest prezent Intunecat

surveying the aftermath of the Festival’s final Sunday night death throes.
Main Street was trying to be the same old Main Street again, but to
Marshall’s discerning eye the whole town seemed to be walking with a limp,
sort of tired, sore, and sluggish. The usual little gaggles of half-hurried
pedestrians were doing a lot of pausing, looking, headshaking, regretting. For
generations Ashton had taken pride in its grass-roots warmth and dignity and
had striven to be a good place for its children to grow up. But now there were
inner turmoils, anxieties, fears, as if some kind of cancer was eating away at
the town and invisibly destroying it. On the exterior, there were the store
windows now replaced with unsightly plywood, the many parking meters
broken off, the litter and broken glass up and down the street. But even as the
store owners and businessmen swept up the debris, there seemed to be an
unspoken sureness that the inner problems would remain, the troubles would
continue. Crime was up, especially among the youth; simple, common trust
in one’s neighbor was diminishing; never had the town been so full of
rumors, scandals, and malicious gossip. In the shadow of fear and suspicion,
life here was gradually losing its joy and simplicity, and no one seemed to
know why or how.
Marshall headed into Courthouse Square. The square consisted of two
buildings, tastefully garnished with willows and shrubs, facing a common
parking lot. On one side was the classy two-story brick courthouse, which
also housed the town’s police department and that somewhat decadent
basement cell block; one of the town’s three squad cars was parked outside.
On the other side was the two-story, glass-fronted town hall, housing the
mayor’s office, the town council, and other decision-makers. Marshall
headed for the courthouse.
He went through the unimposing, plain doorway marked “Police” and
found the small reception area empty. He could hear voices from down the
hall and behind some of the closed doors, but Sara, the secretary, seemed
temporarily out of the room.
No—behind the receptionist’s formica-topped counter a huge file was
slowly rocking back and forth, and grunts and groans were coming up from
below. Marshall leaned over the counter to see a comical sight. Sara, on her
knees, dress or no dress, was in the middle of a blue-streak struggle with a
jammed file drawer that had entangled itself with her desk. Apparently the
score was File Drawers 3, Sara’s Shins 0, and Sara was a poor loser. So were